Newbie with mileage

[ZenLover]

I want to share some thoughts and hopefully get some back from all of you about how a nurse ideally wants to practice. I will be graduating with a BSN-RN in less than a year, but have 15+ years experience with healthcare and extensive personal experience with loved ones passing on. I have battled self esteem issues and demons of my own, I have done my best to be a good friend and help those struggling along as well....I have cried alone and been a shoulder. I know in comparison I am not "old"...but definitely have days that I feel it. Life experience is an incredible teacher is my point I suppose.

With that being said I am a little taken back when I see a lot of threads where nurses complain about feeling like servants or like a waitress to their patients. I understand feeling sad if you feel disrespected or if you feel pressure from people who don't know better to work in a way that is against your top priorities at the moment. I am however all about holistic treatment and my biggest battle will be that I probably have too much empathy. I know what it feels like when you want to be healthy and your body is presenting an argument and you suddenly realize you have no control over the argument at the moment. I know what it feels like to be a family member desperately wanting your loved one to be okay and it just isn't or won't be so...it can make you crazy and behave in ways you normally would never. I guess my point is that ideally I want to be a nurse that doesn't just deliver meds, but works to the best interests of my patients and I think that should include helping them in any way, the situation, the family or whatever should come up to the best of my ability and time. I know I won't have time for everything, but if it makes a patient feel better to have her legs rubbed while she cries to me about the fact that she can not be home with her grandkids...I am okay with that and feel compelled to do so.

I guess I would like to hear some of the more experienced nurses thoughts on the feeling of being a servant. Personally I feel privileged and it makes me feel good to provide someone momentary comfort in an awfully stressful situation. I have no problem with it. Is there a line however? Does my thinking have me in danger of burn out? I definitely felt burn out in my previous life of dealing with "paperwork", fighting insurance companies and feeling like I was more of a problem than a solution. So perhaps burn out has more to do with your personality and what drives you? My clinical instructors encourage me and say that nursing is sometimes a gift you are born with. Some of the students and floor nurses I have worked with have made comments to me about burning myself out with such thinking and that providing massages or too many snacks to a needy patient is not necessary. They laugh and say "better you than me" or get angry and say that because I was too nice during their shift the patient will now expect more of them later and they just don't have the time I do. I don't want to make anyone's job harder...the point is to help, everyone.

Perhaps being a newbie and not working yet I don't get it? What is a good stance to take when practicing? Is there a balance to be taken and perhaps I am going overboard? I want to be a nurse and the very best I can be the rest of my life....not burn out in 5 years. I am thinking palliative care might be the best place for me, so perhaps it is about the population of patients you work with?

[ZenLover, MSN, RN, NP]

What is sad is that I believe you and I guess I was hoping with this post that experienced nurses would reply with responses that no, not everyone becomes jaded or there are ways to cope, prioritize or perhaps finding the patient population that "fits you" helps you to avoid the inevitable jading process. Be quite honest I am so excited to not have to do what I did before that I am hoping that will carry me through for awhile.

[nurseywifeymommy1]

Until you walk in someone else's shoes... Keep that in mind. The Servant thread was venting on a bad day. If you read it all you would hv seen my next post on that thread that said I had a better next day. People can express how they are feeling annomusly here. I could never post that thread on my companies web page. Not everyday is like that day.

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

I don't think any job is without its moments of tedium, obnoxiousness, overwhelming stress, and what-on-earth-was-I-thinking regret. We all have days when we say "the hell with it" and feel jaded; we all have days when there is too much to even think about prioritizing any better than "this came onto my desk first, and this one was last."

If you ever find yourself in a job like that where EVERY day is one of those, then you need to find something better for your own mental health, or you won't be any good to anyone (including your loved ones and pets). Otherwise, when you have one, just say, "Hey, isn't it lucky that this day only has 24 hours in it." All things must pass.

Remember that research shows when people have a bad experience, they tell the story about it 25 times; a good experience gets retold... five times. So for the same actual grief-to-wonderful ratio, you get a hugely inflated account of the grief component. Therefore discount what you hear about jaded and po'd and burnt out by approximately 60% and inflate the wonderful by about 100% and you're even. See, isn't that easy? Like so many other vexing problems in nursing, it's all about ratio and proportion. :)